Hey, I was hoping maybe someone could help me out with this huge problem of mine with my pc!! It would be greatly appreciated.

I started getting this message when I booted up my pc.

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

I looked it up, and I tried fixing it.. which i think was a horribly bad idea. I followed these instruction at, , http://www-biology.ucsd.edu/computerservices/registryfix.html

To sum up what I did, I went into Recovery Console, and basically copied the files in the windows\system32\config file and put them in another newly created file. Deleted the old ones, then put the ones in the new file back in... :S

But... after that, I booted my pc, and i got the message,

'Error loading operating system'

Soo.. I decided maybe I should just swipe everything off of it, and put on a fresh copy... However, it wouldn't let me! During the process of the XP set up, it said it was corrupt or something.. and it wouldn't let me do it.

So.. If solving it involed using Recovery Console, it now only brings up the E drive, no longer the C.. ??

Any thoughts? : \

Laura

hello
well the info in the link if properly followed exactly would have worked or been harmless.

ok try doing this!!!
How to do xp repair install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

read the info over carefully.
if it works it will save your origenal install and repair it. but you will need to do all windows updates.

if the repair install fails do fixmbr from recovery consol than try again

How to use recovery consol
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm
well in recovery consol do chkdsk /f

reboot than from recovery consol chkdsk /r reboot

read how to do those in how to use recovery consol.

The file that the error is talking about is your system registry . Wawadave's advise is the best first course of action to try to save your system . If you don't have any luck with that there is a way to build a new registry from your restore points . Post back and I will walk you through it .

Good luck